Our road to the 3rd European GO Summit

This year’s European GO Summit – following summits in Berlin and Rotterdam – will be hosted in Amsterdam, organized by Anki, Marthe and Megan from Green Office VU at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam from 17-20.November. Here, they share some recent updates from organising the summit:

Creating a 4-day program for over 70 people isn’t easy, we discovered. For over the past 6 months we have been arguing, crying and laughing, trying to come to a consensus. But it seems like we are getting there! Let us update you on the organisation of our GO Summit 2016:

First of all, we got you all the best place to stay in Amsterdam! We reserved spots for all participants in the exciting new WOW Amsterdam hostel in Amsterdam West, where the city’s people, travelers, temporary guests and resident artists come together to sleep, eat, work, share, relax and more.

In the courtyard of this beautiful place they created an urban farm, The Plantage, which functions as a laboratory for the experimentation of food production in urban areas. So even in your free time you will get inspired to experience the urban surroundings of the city differently!

But you don’t only get to look forward to your free hours in the city, we also got started on an amazing line-up of workshops and speakers to increase your professional skills, exchange knowledge and learn more about sustainability issues. Here are some:

We have VU professor Pieter van Beukering talking about renewable energy and professor Jan Willem Erisman talking about waste. There will be a workshop from Rick Baggermans from Maverick talking about nudging and improving your campaigns to encourage sustainable behavior at your institution and a workshop from identity specialist Sander Ummelen from Janus Alignment talking about shared values at your GO. And these are just a few highlights, there is more to come.

For the next weeks we will continue completing the summit program for you, and we are also looking for the next (or for some first) most important part of the program: food! We’ll update you about our quest for the best vegetarian options in Amsterdam very soon…

I hope you are all excited, ‘cause I know we are! If you haven’t registered your Green Office yet to participate, please do that as soon as possible before all the spots for the summit have been filled.